Batman: Arkham City – how do you go about creating an epic super hero adventure?

It hasn't been surprising to see Batman: Arkham City crop up on just about every "most anticipated games of E3 2011" list. Arkham Asylum was one of the finest releases of 2009, a suitably dark and brooding action adventure, with a superb story, intuitive controls and a genuine understanding of Batman's appeal.

But what are the design processes that lead to such a refined and involving experience? As part of my research for the recent feature on game design, I spoke to Sefton Hill, game director at Rocksteady Studios, about developing a modern third-person adventure.

Here's what he had to say...What do you think are the fundaments of designing a modern action adventure title? What are your design starting blocks?Wow! Let's start with an easy question! I think creating a successful modern action adventure game requires a delicate balance between many critical components with each of these complementing and enhancing each other. You need an engaging storyline created around compelling characters in a beautifully realised world, all built on the bedrock of original and fun core gameplay mechanics. No longer is it sufficient to excel in any one of these areas if you want to stand out. At Rocksteady, working on Batman: Arkham City, we started with two key driving forces: everything we do is built around creating a fun experience and this experience must be completely authentic to Batman and his universe. In terms of what the content is, it's simply about what excites us. I believe the only way to make something that people will feel passionate about is if you feel inspired by the ideas yourself. We don't try and second guess what other people want; we make the game we want to play. Are there any theories of design that your studio subscribes to?There are many different trends, but personally I believe there is no magic bullet design theory that fits all situations. At Rocksteady, we believe the solution is to be flexible. Depending on what area of the game we're designing, different people will be involved and different processes will be used. We have a totally different approach when we design levels, to story, to bosses and to core gameplay mechanics. Some of these processes involve repeated iterations and reviews by a large group over a number of days and some require monthly reviews by just a couple of people over the entire duration of the project. If there's one thing we always strive to do though, it's to keep the design process as inclusive as possible. We have a team full of incredibly talented staff and great ideas come from everyone. But in terms of structure, Hollywood famously has its three-act system – it's easy to spot, but it works. Do narrative-based games have anything similar?What's exciting about game development at this time is that that developers are still experimenting with many different ways to keep players engaged. Because we have an instant feedback loop, we can tailor the experience to exactly what the player is doing. There are things we can do in videogames that simply can't be done in any other medium. The Side Missions in Batman: Arkham City are a good example. We have around 15 hours of story that's off the main path. It's completely down to the player when and how they want to tackle this – there's no right or wrong time. There's no other medium that can offer this kind of flexible experience where the viewer gets to tailor the experience they want themselves. In terms of narrative structure, I think games are much more analogous to an episodic TV series than a film. You have, say, 15 hourly episodes to fill, each requiring its own narrative arc but each plugging into an overarching storyline. It requires a lot of planning to make sure that every single hour is consistent with each other, is feeding and driving towards a compelling crescendo, while remaining implicitly self-explanatory so players can pick up and play at any time and know what they are doing. How important is the acquisition of new skills and items, in terms of retaining player interest? Do you work hard on ensuring these aspects are spaced correctly throughout the game?It takes over 25 hours to complete the main stories in Batman: Arkham City. To keep players engaged for this length of time, not only do the characters and the story need to progress, but the core mechanics of the game they are playing need to change and adapt as well. The new abilities, upgrades and most importantly, the player's mastery of the character, give this progression, resulting in an experience at the end of the game which is almost unrecognisable from that at the start. We spend months planning out the distribution of the new abilities throughout the game to ensure that players are not overwhelmed at the start, and from this point forward is getting a constantly evolving experience perfectly balanced with their learning curve. What's really rewarding is seeing the change in players by the end of the game. Playing a great, well-balanced, fine-tuned game is almost like learning a musical instrument in fast forward. As players progress, the music they make will surprise even themselves. To see players go from enjoying running around the Arkham City streets and then fast forward 10 hours to see them swooping hundreds of metres through back alleyways and impossibly tight spaces to glide into a group of heavily armed thugs and take them out in a matter of seconds is incredibly rewarding for us to see. In what ways is interface design an important factor? Obviously motion controllers have brought this to the fore recently, but with in-depth action adventures, are there any guidelines on how buttons and analogue sticks should be employed? Or do you just iterate until a game feels right?Creating the perfect interface between the player and the game is critically important. Without this, it doesn't really matter about anything else, as the player is not going to be able to enjoy the content if they are fighting against the controls to do so. There are definitely accepted best practises for this which have been honed over the years – for example, using the left analogue stick to move and the right analogue stick to look around. When designing the controls you need to consider familiarity with accepted best practises because it makes the game instantly accessible if you use a scheme that players have become accustomed to over the years. Where it gets more interesting is that most games then have their own unique requirements on top of these best practises. Taking Batman as an example, he has a wealth of different gadgets and navigational abilities on top of the core movement set that most action adventure games have. As we add these we need to be very mindful not to make the controls so complicated that no one can enjoy the game. Designing the perfect control scene is really a question of balance. As you make certain actions more prominent on the controller, then other actions necessarily become less prominent and easy to access. The perfect control scheme is one where the accessibility of the various controls is directly related to their usage requirement. This also needs to factor in the context of this usage. To give an example, you won't necessarily be using a smoke pellet all the time in Arkhan City but when you're getting shot at by five The Joker thugs, you want that action to be instantly available on one burton press as it's the difference between life and death. For Rocksteady, the control interface design is the most iterative part of the process and we will try out different configurations for the entire development cycle, right up until just before we ship, to get the perfect balance. In what fundamental ways do you think narrative game design has changed over the last five years? What have been the key new aspects?I think for many years now we have had games with rich stories and detailed characterisation. However these were the exception rather than the rule. If I had to choose one element that is precipitating a change it would be the increases in technology that has enabled developers to create much more life-like characters. I think this is having a significant effect on the industry's attitude to telling stories. At Rocksteady, the narrative design has always been a core driving force of our work but improvements in technology are allowing us to breathe even more life into our characters and story. For example, in Batman: Arkham City we are using full facial motion capture for the first time, which gives a full character performance, allowing the player to see even the most subtle emotional responses on the characters' faces, as well as hear them in the dialogue. What do you think are the key emerging influences on game design? Where do you think narrative games like Batman, FEAR, Uncharted, etc are going?The beauty of video game development is that the potential for new ideas is incredible. The industry is so aggressively creative that the parameters of what is even possible changes every few years. It's what makes working in this industry so challenging, competitive and rewarding. So for now, I am just really excited to see what people think when they get to play Batman: Arkham City as we feel this offers something truly original with a narrative structure that balances open-world gameplay while being anchored by a strong core narrative experience.

•Batman: Arkham City will be relased for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on 21 October